A Letter From Germany

THE year 1903 was not an eventful one to Germany in its foreign relations. It brought, indeed, the conclusion of the Venezuela incident; but of the other large movements that agitated the world, — the Macedonian outbreak, Russia’s position in Manchuria and the Russo-Japanese imbroglio, the surprising revival of protectionism in England, — Germany occupied merely the attitude of an interested spectator. All the more interesting, on the other hand, were the home developments of the year,—the Reichstag elections, registering the amazing progress of Socialism ; conditions in the Liberal parties, foreshadowing their possible reunion and the rejuvenation of Liberalism ; army discipline, the maltreatment of soldiers, and the doings of military courts. Less important was the year’s legislation ; while in the economic life of the Empire the watchword was the recuperation of business, along with the consolidation of industrial and financial interests.

“ Our policy in East Asia is to hold on to what we have and develop it, without burning our fingers in matters that do not concern us.” In these words Count von Bülow rejected the assumption that Germany should take an active hand in excluding Russia from Manchuria. According to the Chancellor there is no quarter of the world in which Germany has less to seek than in Manchuria. This declaration of policy by Germany’s leading statesman may seem to approach the utmost verge of modesty, in view of the fact that Germany seized Kiao-Chau only six years ago for the express purpose of extending her trade relations in the Far East. Nevertheless, it merely extends to Asia what has grown to be Germany’s traditional attitude toward Russia in the field of European politics. Ever since the estrangement between the two countries growing out of the Berlin Congress, Germany’s policy has been to win back the confidence of the St. Petersburg Government. Hence, Russia’s will must not be crossed, except upon the very gravest occasion. In view of possible developments beyond the Vosges, Germany must necessarily regard Russia’s friendship as a most valuable asset in her political balance sheet; and to transfer it to the side of liabilities for the sake of wholly problematical trade advantages in Manchuria would be moonshine madness. This is the view that prevails at Berlin, and it cannot be doubted that it meets the approval of the vast majority of the German people, Herr Bebel to the contrary notwithstanding. During the embroilment of Russia and Japan, too, this line of action has been rigidly adhered to. Germany has maintained a strict neutrality ; no word or act of the Government has shown where its sympathies lie ; and the standpoint of the press, whether inspired or other, has been the same. Germany maintained a similar reserve during the Macedonian troubles. From the very beginning she took the position that Russia and Austria were the two foreign countries most immediately concerned, and that they should be given the lead in shaping the policy of the great Powers in respect to introducing reforms and removing the reasonable grievances of the Macedonian population. Berlin, therefore, loyally supported every line of action agreed upon at St. Petersburg and Vienna.

The most notable event in the relation between Germany and the United States during the year was the winding up of the Venezuela incident. While Germany succeeded beyond expectations in enforcing her claims against that vagabond republic, the feeling here was pretty general that the game was not worth the candle, since it aroused in the United States deep suspicions as to Germany’s general policy for the future in South America; and it also brought into bold relief the animosity against Germany that had accumulated in England during the unhappy war in South Africa. In some quarters, too, the Venezuela affair was regretted as having only increased the prestige of the United States in world politics, while damaging, rather than improving, that of Germany. This view found expression, at least, in the opposition speeches in the Reichstag. Certainly the whole matter did nothing to better the state of German feeling toward the people of the United States ; and when the little Panama revolution occurred the newspapers pretty generally vented their spleen against us by announcing that they heard “ the rolling of the almighty dollar.” With all the cocksureness of subjective journalism, — in the lack of a decent news-service abroad, — German editors can spin out their disquisitions about the settled policy of the United States to absorb the whole of South America ; and American machinations and American money are readily pressed into service to throw light on sinister events in that continent where simpler explanations would be more obvious.

Nevertheless, the Panama revolution certainly gave satisfaction to the German Government, and to the saner part of the press, from one standpoint, — namely, the possibility that it opens for the construction of the Isthmian canal. It was doubtless this consideration — along with the wish to do a friendly act to the United States — that moved the German Government to recognize the young republic with unusual promptness. The assumption that has found expression in a few American newspapers, that Germany would like in some way to hinder that enterprise, is too fantastic for sober treatment. On the contrary, she awaits the building of the canal by the United States with impatience, since her trade connections with the west coasts of North and South America, with Australia and the German possessions in the Pacific, can only be greatly improved through the establishment of this shorter route.

All that I said in this magazine a year ago regarding the serious situation created for us by the new German tariff law could be repeated here. Indeed, the prospect for satisfactory trade relations between the two countries has grown still more ominous since that time; for the probability foreshadowed in my letter of March, 1903, that Germany would withdraw from us trade advantages given to other countries under treaty, has now become a certainty. Indeed, before that letter appeared in print, Count Posadowsky announced in the Reichstag that the most-favored - nation clause no longer exists as between Germany and the United States, because our action in making special concessions to other countries, in order to secure reciprocity arrangements, amounts to its suspension. The correctness of this policy has only been strengthened, from the German standpoint, through the ratification of our Cuban Reciprocity Treaty, which will give the deathblow to Germany’s sugar trade in the United States.

In view of the changed situation brought about by Count Posadowsky’s announcement, it is high time that our statesmen should begin to consider what they can do to secure as favorable terms for the admission into Germany of our agricultural produce and other merchandise as other countries will enjoy. Nothing short of a radical revision of our tariff law in the direction of giving the President large discretion to reduce duties in return for equivalent advantages will enable him to secure to our farmers and exporters their due place in the German market. There are no indications, indeed, that anybody in Germany, beyond a handful of extreme Agrarians, wants a tariff war with us. With the German Government, however, the question will not be what it wants, but what the domestic and foreign political situation will force upon it. How can it again succeed in negotiating good commercial treaties with Russia and Austria, for example, if those countries know in advance that the United States can have, without the asking, all the trade advantages that they themselves must haggle and barter for ? And, at home, how can it affront the powerful Agrarian parties, upon which it must rely for general political support, by making unbought concessions to the very country that offers the sharpest competition for German agriculture ? The German Government is friendly enough toward us ; but, for all that, the exigencies of home and foreign politics will compel it to apply to our goods, in the absence of treaty, rates of duty which it regards itself as excessive. Those rates are in the law against its will; only our action will enable it to dispense with applying them against us. I am sure that the German Government would be thankful to us if we should relieve it from this unpleasant dilemma.

The passage of a law by Congress to prevent the pirating of literary and art productions exhibited by foreigners at the St. Louis Exposition, made a good impression here, and corresponds with the expressed wish of Germans interested in those lines. There was considerable agitation of the matter when many manufacturers of art prints refused to exhibit at St. Louis, on the ground that they had no protection from virtual theft. While the enactment of the law, therefore, has been received with satisfaction, the latter is tempered by the consideration that Congress only acted as an afterthought, in order to promote the material success of the Exposition, while ignoring the abiding equities in the matter. In this connection the German press has indulged in some rather bitter comment upon the general subject of copyright conditions in the United States. German laws, it is complained, give the American author and artist absolute protection from piracy, while our Copyright Law requires the manufacture of books and art prints in the United States before guaranteeing protection. It is a standing source of irritation among German writers that their stories are habitually reprinted by German newspapers in America, without their having any way of securing redress ; and newspaper editors, given to plainness of speech, hold us up to contempt as “ a state with legally authorized robbery of intellectual property.”

The visit of an American squadron to Kiel, the Emperor’s speech there at the banquet given by our ambassador at Berlin, together with his subsequent offer of a cup to American yacht clubs as a prize for an international race across the Atlantic, were all events making for good relations between the two countries. After reading his speech at Kiel, surely no intelligent American can doubt the Emperor’s sincere good will for the United States and its people. The organization of a thriving American Chamber of Commerce at Berlin creates another bond between the two lands that promises happy results for both. I mentioned last year the fact that many Germans were visiting the United States in order to study our industrial and transportation methods. Those economic pilgrimages became in 1903 more frequent and more important than ever ; and during 1904 the St. Louis Exposition will cause such a migration of inquiring Germans on errands of investigation into various fields of American economic activity as we have never before witnessed. Indeed, it is no exaggeration now to speak of the United States as the economic Mecca of German manufacturers and students of affairs. The United States attracts more German visitors of this class than all other countries combined; even important lands like England and France scarcely count in comparison. Even newspapers that are little friendly to us are now saying that the German writer who undertakes to discuss the large economic questions and tendencies of the world without accurate knowledge of the United States, based upon personal observation, is only a second-rate authority, and his opinions carry no weight.

Herr Goldberger recently published his study, Das Land der Unbegrenzten Moeglichkeiten ; and it is highly significant of the interest felt here in our country that six editions of the book were called for in two months, although the Germans proverbially buy few books. It is no less significant that its title speedily became a “ winged word ” in the fugitive literature of the day. Everybody is now talking about “ Unbegrenzte Moeglichkeiten ” in a thousand different applications, and everybody is asking his American friends what they think of Goldberger’s book. These, if they are discriminating, have to admit that for once a German has taken a too rosecolored view of the United States, that his keen appreciation of our material progress and our aptitude for marshaling purely economic forces, has misled the writer into an optimism hardly warranted by manifestations on higher planes of our national life. The late Wilhelm von Polenz also brought out during the year a book on the United States, founded on extended personal observations, and giving full recognition to the finer tendencies in our life, without ignoring our many shortcomings.

Along with this more careful study of our country, the exaggerated fear of the “ American Danger ” that agitated the German public several years ago has been greatly modified. The economic travelers referred to above all came home with an immense respect for our material resources and their magnificent development ; nevertheless, some of them returned with the conviction that Germany’s economic position in the world is not imperiled by our progress. Count Thiele-Winkler, indeed, was so impressed with what he saw in our iron industry that he came home and brought out a translation of Mr. Vanderlip’s pamphlet on the American commercial invasion of Europe, adding a preface pitched in a tone of despondent concern as to Germany’s prospects in competition with American iron and steel manufactures. Goldberger, on the other hand, boldly says, “ For Germany there is no American Danger.” This more confident attitude is due to tendencies and events observed in the United States. It rests chiefly upon the fact that the costs of production with us have risen through higher wages, dearer raw materials, heavier transportation charges ; while the remarkable growth of labor unions and their autocratic methods for forcing high wages by multiplying strikes are referred to as a serious handicap for the American export trade. The financing of our industrial trusts, their over-capitalization, the breakdown of the Shipbuilding Trust, and the forced retirement of the president of the Steel Corporation deepened the German distrust of our financial methods ; while Mr. Morgan’s contract with the British Admiralty was interpreted as a practical capitulation of the great financier. He was accordingly treated in the German press as shorn of his locks, and was compelled to make sport for the Philistines. Corresponding, too, with this waning of the American Danger, the great process of liquidation in Wall Street made almost no impression on the German security markets, notwithstanding the eager attention given to our stock quotations.

The pleasant facts already mentioned as making for satisfactory relations between us and Germany might convey a false impression, if left to be considered alone. Of course there is another side to the picture, — German chauvinism and German sensitiveness were sure to provide for that. An American living in Germany never ceases to be amazed at the supersensitiveness of many Germans in regard to their national dignity. There is an element here — characterized by the late Professor Mommsen as “ our national fools, they are called Pan-Germans ” — which is ever on the watchtowers of the nation’s glory, ever seeking to espy some enemy who but crooks his finger at the object of their patriotic adoration. To them it is a deep humiliation for their nation when the German ambassador at Washington goes to the railway station to bid adieu to the President. When young Mr. Vanderbilt visited Dantzic last summer at the suggestion of the Emperor, the latter, in recognition of the American attentions to Prince Henry, had an unimportant government official detailed to receive him and show him objects of interest. Forthwith the alarm was sounded in a section of the German press, which suspected their Emperor of bending the knee to American Mammon ; and the tempest in the national teapot fumed and sputtered for weeks. Five months later, when the incident had sunk out of public view, it again came up in the Reichstag, where the Chancellor of the Empire thought it necessary to make an official statement about it. Alas, what a petty incident I am putting into my letter! — but how typically German !

German newspapers are never weary of attributing to our “ yellow press ” the blame for whatever unpleasantness may exist in the relations between the two countries ; and even weighty professors of history write for the reviews in support of this assumption. One of the specialties of that press seems to be the invention of stories about Germany acquiring a coaling station somewhere in American waters. This canard has reappeared in so many forms that it has quite lost its adaptability for inch headlines on the American side. Nevertheless, it never fails to bring out a chorus of indignant protests in the German newspapers; and I suspect that the inventors of it are subscribers to some German clipping agency, and take a mean delight in studying the German echo to their cheap trick. At any rate, the story argues no special malice toward Germany, but rather a foolish love for sensation. What we Americans find to object to, however, in a part of the German press, is a more serious matter, — their brutal disregard of tact in treating of American affairs, their malevolent gibes, their studied superciliousness, their gross exaggeration of our national vices, — but the list is a long one, and I shall not try to complete it. What we complain of, too, is by no means confined to the newspapers. The following is a mild case: The Berlin Wagner Society recently protested against the performance of Parsifal in New York, as it had a perfect right to do ; but it could not lose this opportunity to express its deep contempt for the musical taste of New York, thus : “The sacred legacy that Richard Wagner left to art is to be thrown away upon hearers in the dollar-land, upon whom the true spirit of Wagnerian art has hardly dawned, and doubtless never will dawn.” The Society was bidding for American support in preventing the “ desecration ; ” here we have its conception of how to win it.

The protectionist revival in England naturally awakens lively interest in Germany. As that country affords far and away the largest market for German goods, the Chamberlain agitation cannot be viewed with indifference by German statesmen. The fact, too, has not escaped attention here that the erratic Englishman finds the ground prepared for his agitation by German help ; for the anti-German feeling that has sprung up in England in connection with the Boer War, impartial writers admit, has given an immense impulse to that movement. The Germans had in 1903 another striking illustration, too, of the deep resentment now cherished against them in England. A group of London capitalists was about to join similar groups of German and French financiers last spring in organizing the Bagdad Railway, and were only awaiting the sanction of the British Cabinet for certain features of the enterprise. That sanction appeared to be no longer in doubt after the Prime Minister had spoken in Parliament, showing the desirability of enlisting English financial support for the undertaking, rather than leave it to the exclusive control of the Germans and French. Thereupon a storm of indignant protests was heard, the old cry of “ British interests ” was raised; and the result was that the Cabinet faced about sharply and refused to sanction the project.

The subject most strongly engaging the attention of Germany just now in its foreign relations is the negotiation of new commercial treaties. The old ones elapse with the current year; and all the business interests of the country are eagerly speculating as to their probable status under the forthcoming agreements. It was expected, when the new tariff law was passed, that some of the treaties could be laid before the Reichstag within a twelvemonth. Instead of this, however, one hears only of negotiations with Russia and Switzerland, with no indication as to their completion. Meanwhile, the Conservatives in the Reichstag are interpellating the Government about them, and demanding that the old treaties, at least, be denounced. How the negotiations are progressing nobody knows; but the impression prevails that the Russian treaty presents very grave difficulties.

Indeed, the whole question of the treaties is involved in the greatest uncertainty. What the Reichstag will do with them nobody can predict. The Socialists, by whose votes the existing arrangements were ratified, have announced in advance that they will support no treaties that increase the price of the necessaries of life. It is highly improbable, moreover, that any treaties that the Government can make will prove acceptable to the two Conservative parties and the Agrarian element among the Clericals and National Liberals ; for they can only be ratified by conceding heavy reductions from the maximum scale of duties, — a thing which the Agrarians would bitterly resist. It may easily occur, therefore, that the most reactionary elements in German politics and the most radical, the Socialists, will unite to reject the Government’s treaties.

What would then happen? Would the Government put the new tariff law into force, or would it — as some freetrade optimists predict — continue the present law, after having made agreements with the treaty powers to prolong existing arrangements ? The former alternative would undoubtedly be exceedingly repugnant to the Government, since it is fully aware that the high duties forced into the law against its will would greatly damage German interests in many directions. On the other hand, could it refuse to enforce the law and take the political risks involved ? Constitutionally, indeed, the Cabinet is responsible, not to the Reichstag, but to the Emperor; and the latter can negative a law by refusing to promulgate it. This theoretical independence of the Cabinet, however, would hardly embolden it to break with its own supporters in a matter where they and their constituents have such large private interests at stake ; for, after all, a German Cabinet cannot govern long without a majority.

Germany continues to round out her social reform legislation. Hitherto the various sick funds gave assistance for only thirteen weeks, while the invalid pension could be drawn only after twenty-six weeks of continuous sickness. A new measure passed last year closes the gap, so that the working classes are now completely insured against sickness. Another measure worthy of mention was the introduction of secret balloting at the Reichstag elections, which the country squires cannot quite forgive the Government for carrying through at the repeated demand of the Radicals and Socialists.

The Reichstag elections showing the prodigious growth of the Social Democracy was the largest event of the year in the national life. Indeed, this gain of 900,000 Socialist votes in five years is a most stupendous fact. It marks a significant milestone in the country’s history, and the national consciousness has been busy for a half-year in contemplating and trying to explain it,— a milestone to which Germans will long revert as the starting-point of new conditions in the Empire. Those 3,000,000 votes weigh heavily upon the minds of men who fancy themselves the appointees of Providence to keep this mad world in its social orbit. Something must be done, they are saying; “ we are on an express train that is rolling with the wind’s velocity into the Zukunfts-Staat, and only the Government can save us ; — let it put on the brakes ! ”

How was this Socialist victory possible ? Was it, in fact, a Socialist victory ? In my letter of a year ago I said that the cry of “Bread-usury” would be raised by the party, and its speakers would everywhere attack the new tariff law as designed to enhance the price of the laboring man’s necessary food. Such, indeed, was the case ; the burden of the Socialists’ speeches was everywhere the tariff; they and their enemies are agreed as to that. Apart from this they made some political capital out of their treatment by the courts and the Government, the restrictions upon the liberties of the working population in the matter of their organizations, and the association of these for common action; out of army conditions, maltreatment of privates, and the sentences inflicted by military courts ; finally, out of the Emperor’s speeches against the Socialists, which they regarded as an unwarrantable interference by the Crown in the political controversies of the people. All live, present-day matters, — nothing anywhere about the Utopia of the Socialists, a state with all industries nationalized and everybody made happy under a system of collectivism. Thus their surprising success was hardly a victory of Socialism, but rather of radical Liberalism. Somebody has aptly characterized it by paraphrasing Disraeli’s well-remembered bon mot: the Socialists caught the Liberals bathing and stole their clothes.

Under this view the election affords a sort of bitter-sweet solace for the three little radical parties, which are being ground to powder between the upper and nether millstones of the Reaction and Socialism. Indeed, it is recognized on all sides that the Socialist vote was swollen to its huge volume partly through the assistance of electors who do not dream of adopting the creed of that party. Large numbers of citizens were deeply disgusted with political conditions in the Empire, and wanted to give the strongest possible expression to their protest. They found the Socialists ploughing with the Liberal heifer, cutting a much wider furrow, too, than the rightful owner, and so holding out the promise of exterminating the weeds more speedily and effectively. Hence, a vote for Socialist candidates would be the heaviest body blow against the Government that they could deliver ; and so they voted. That party was thus the only one that came out of the election with a marked accession of strength. They gained twenty-one seats, raising their force in the Reichstag to eightyone members ; and they would have one hundred and twenty-five if the districts were apportioned according to population.

The election then demonstrated anew and with overwhelming force that Socialism is a great elementary movement in the life of the German people. What will come out of it ? Did June Sixteenth register its high-water mark, or was it the point at which the dike began to crumble before the in rushing flood ? Can the rising tide be stemmed in time to save the State ? Where and how are the resisting walls to be built? Such are the anxious questions that people began to ask themselves last June.

While this perturbed state of the public mind was at its height an event occurred which partly relieved its tension. The yearly convention of the Social Democracy was held in Dresden in September, and presented such a repulsive picture of dissension and distrust in the party as to restore in a measure the equanimity of over-anxious souls. The Socialist leaders, the laurels of their June victory still fresh upon their brows, greeted one another there with such ejaculations as “ lies ! ” “ perfidy unparalleled ! ” One “ comrade ” was denounced as “ deeply degraded morally ; ” and Herr Bebel, the fiery Boanerges of the party, was forced openly to admit, “ We were never more divided than now.” Then, too, the stringency of party discipline, brought out in the debates where it was shown that Socialist writers had to apply to the National Committee for permission to print articles in bourgeois newspapers, was pointed to by the foes of Socialism as a tyranny that must ultimately grow intolerable and disrupt the party.

However, while the Dresden Convention reassured some minds, it was a distinct disappointment to others. Some progressive politicians and university professors had hoped that the Socialists, in view of their accession of new followers from various sections of the urban and rural population, would depart from their old policy of narrowly representing the interests of the proletariat and put their movement upon a broader basis. That hope was dashed at Dresden. The Revisionists were again voted down by an overwhelming majority ; Bebel, who again proved himself the soul of the party, swept the Convention away with his declaration of undying hostility to the existing order of society ; and his resolutions, reiterating that the Socialist movement is a class conflict, were emphatically indorsed. Hermann Sudermann, always a pronounced Liberal, thus confessed his disappointment over the outcome at Dresden : “ Since the Dresden Convention the middle-class bourgeoisie is without hope, without a future.”

The strife in the party as exhibited at Dresden was regarded in some quarters as foreshadowing its speedy dissolution; but the united front presented by it a few weeks later in the elections for the Prussian Diet demonstrated anew the ability of the Socialists to bury their theoretical differences and go to work. The Revisionists, under the leadership of Bernstein, continue to pound away at the Marxist groundwork of the party’s creed, and perhaps they will crumble it in time —after Bebel is gone ; but their faith in State collectivism remains intact, and harmony at this cardinal point will doubtless keep the party united and on a war footing for all practical tasks.

As to the final issue of the Socialist movement nobody at present can form an authoritative judgment; but conditions undoubtedly point to its ultimate success. The party has now shown its ability to win support from the peasantry ; it has swept into its ranks vast numbers of petty tradesmen and independent artisans. It is spreading among the smaller Government officials; and many retired army officers, fretting over what they regard as the premature termination of their careers, quietly embrace Socialism. The crowded state of the professions, too, makes for the spread of that doctrine ; and the Universities, with their 37,000 students, are yearly swelling the ranks of the discontented intellectual proletariat which lightly takes to Socialist views. A recent inquiry brought out the fact that thirty-one per cent of the physicians of Berlin have incomes of less than $750 from their practice and all other sources. Now, a man living under these hard conditions is sure to think earnestly upon the social problem, and it is almost certain that he will think radically. Thus the crowded professions supply the material from which Socialism continually recruits its intellectual leaders.

Moreover, the foes of Socialism have apparently learned nothing from June Sixteenth, and continue to turn water upon its wheels. In the Reichstag a Conservative leader suggested a law for the disfranchisement of all Socialists professing to be republicans and revolutionists. The Chancellor, indeed, rejected the idea of special measures of repression, and announced his intention to enforce existing laws against open attack, and to extend social reform legislation ; but he thought it necessary to give the following warning to Socialists : “ The State will defend itself. Who is the State ? If you once resort to action you will soon find out.” In other words, the final argument is — the sword. Also, the Chancellor’s announcement that no Government official who is a Socialist would be retained in the service of the State will prove but a blow in the water ; for a discreet silence can be practiced by the official, as well as by the soldier. The latter is forbidden by the regulations to confess himself a Socialist; indeed, a perturbed Conservative leader reminded the Chancellor that the time was coming when the army could no longer be relied upon to act unitedly against that party in an emergency.

The election has started a remarkable agitation in the four Liberal parties of the Empire. The impotence of German Liberalism, through its unhappy divisions, was never more apparent than now ; and the outcome of the elections has forced it to serious questionings as to its future. There is something exceedingly pathetic in the disappointment of many of the best minds of Germany, like that of the late Professor Mommsen, over the decline of Liberalism and the apathy of the masses. In answer to an editor who asked for an expression of his views upon the result of the elections, the old historian wrote : “ To me it seems that the battle is definitively lost. . . . I am too old and weary to give expression publicly in the press to absolute hopelessness.”

Decimated by the advance of Socialism, and weakened by their own factional quarrels, the Radical Liberals see their modicum of political influence slipping from them ; whereas the National Liberal Party, the controller of the Empire’s destinies a generation ago, has more and more lost its Liberal principles, and succeeded in checking its numerical decline only by meekly voting for the measures of the Government. The three radical groups — the Radical People’s Party, the Radical Union, and the South German People’s Party — were nearly as strong as the Socialists in the old Reichstag ; now they are not half so strong ; and even including the National Liberals they only slightly outnumber the Socialists. The weakening of Liberalism and the advance of Socialism have both tended in the same direction, so far as their influence upon the Government is concerned ; the latter, namely, has been forced to ally itself more closely with the Conservatives and the powerful Clericals ; and these latter parties have grown more disposed to bury their differences of religious creed, in order to interpose a common front against the rising tide of Socialism on the one hand, and intellectual freedom on the other. That the spirit of the age must be resisted and the principle of authority upheld are common articles of political faith with these parties; and they are known to cherish designs against the common schools, as well as against those bulwarks of Germany’s intellectual liberty, the Universities.

Threatened thus from right and left, the Liberals are beginning to ask themselves what they can do to bring their principles again into favor. The idea of reuniting their scattered fragments is abroad in the land ; the watchword of a Great Liberal Party has been spontaneously given out in many quarters ; even in the ranks of the National Liberals the idea of union has taken hold, and is fermenting vigorously. When, however, the attempt is made to formulate a common creed for the new party, the enormous difficulties in the way of union become painfully apparent. The National Liberals, for example, are mostly high protectionists, being the party of the great manufacturers ; the radical groups, on the other hand, are freetraders. On other important matters, like appropriations for the army and navy, the parties are equally at variance. However, a modest beginning toward reunion was made last autumn, when Pastor Naumann’s little National Social Party was absorbed by the Radical Union. This move has deeply offended Eugen Richter, the leader of the Radical People’s Party, who is a stiff Liberal of the old school, and who boasts that he has not changed his opinions for forty years. Dr. Barth, the leader of the Union, realizes that no party can make headway in Germany which stands in the way of the national defense, and which opposes social reform legislation; while Richter, with his group, opposes all increases of army and navy, and still occupies toward social reform the old standpoint of laisser-faire. Barth, too, enthusiastically espouses the idea of reuniting the Liberals, while Richter regards this as a visionary plan, and coldly says, “ Perhaps a great Liberal party will he possible after some decades.” All things considered, therefore, it seems certain that the Great Liberal Party will remain a pious wish.

Dr. Barth has also started a new movement in the radical groups in favor of an alliance with the Social Democracy, and has argued his case with great force. His own party indorsed the idea in a modified form, and so did the South German Radicals ; but the Richter group will none of it, and evidently the voters are averse to an alliance with the Socialists. The latter, on their part, have given the plan a cold reception; and apparently there is no encouragement for German Liberalism in this direction.

The army was, last year, again the subject of much discussion and much concern. The country has been treated within six months to one sensation after another in the shape of military trials for the maltreatment of soldiers. On a recent date a lieutenant was sentenced for 698 instances of maltreating his men, and a non-commissioned officer for 1520 instances. These and numbers of other cases of the kind have made an exceedingly unfavorable impression upon the country ; and the public mind is apprehensive lest conditions in the army are even worse than revealed by these sensational cases. It was but natural that this public concern should be reflected in the recent Reichstag debates, and the speakers of all parties except the Conservatives tried a tilt at the army administration, which, of course, gave earnest assurances that the evils complained of would be rooted out.

It is interesting to note that literature has already seized upon this new aspect of the army for treatment. Hitherto the officer had figured in fiction and on the stage mainly as an agreeable social figure, irresistible to young maidens’ hearts; now the more tragical note is caught. Baron von Schlicht has recently printed nine novelettes under the collective title, Ein Ehrenwort, with the following bill of fatalities: five officers resign under compulsion, five shoot themselves, and one is killed in a duel. The most widely read book of the year was Beyerlein’s Jena oder Sedan ? which casts doubt upon the efficiency of the army because of the spread of immorality and luxury therein. It is significant, too, that active corps commanders are writing in the magazines against luxury in the army, and urging the return to the good old simple ways. Another book, far less important as literature, but hardly less sensational than the one just mentioned, was Lieutenant Bilse’s Aus einer Kleinen Garnison. It would scarcely have attracted any attention if it had not been made the basis of a court-martial for the author, at which the astonishing fact was brought out that his realistic descriptions of moral decay in the social life of a small garrison battalion were largely photographic copies from real life.

William C. Dreher.